Windows To Vista, or not to Vista..

Don't forget the formula tool in word 2007. It's just SO much better than it was in 2003.

 

Not going to disagree with that, but do a quick google for the speed issues with Excel 2007 and things soon start to look patchy. I have a scientific spreadsheet for calculation of electron wavefunctions (if anyone knows what I'm on about!), basically its very computationally intensive - it runs just fine in 2003, but in 2007 scrolling down takes minutes for each click of the mouse. Apparently a patch was released, but I tried it and it wasn't improved much

Gotta hate bloat..

 

There's one reason and one reason only for Vista and that's DX10. In all other regards Vista loses badly, and I won't even mention how DRM-infested Vista is. D'oh... did it anyway...

 

o tell me how would the superior video driver implementation loose to XP?
video driver crash => system recover in Vista
video driver crash => blue screen in XP

 

That is part of DX10, and actually the reason MS insists that it is "impossible" to backport DX10 to XP (yeah, right). And to be honest, a video driver crash in XP does not necessarily mean a BSoD (though it's more the norm than the exception).

 

fine, if you want to see it that way, let's try this:
64bit support for Vista is far greater than XP 64bit.

-Vista's aero interfact
-more stable than XP
-more secure than XP
-faster than XP
and lots more.

do try Vista for more than 1 month on an actual computer before bashing it

 

+1 for wuyanxu

Let me add,
XP uses layers for multimedia items on the desktop, play a movie a real, pause it, and drag Windows Media player around, see how the movie is separated from the program. This pathetic system requires more computer power to play the same movie as you would under Vista, as vista doesn't work with layers (as it should have been since day 1).
DRM?! Do not talk what you don't know. DRM support in Vista is to allow you to play HDDVD and Bluray movies, NOTHING ELSE. Without it, you simply can't play them. DRM does nothing more.
Here educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

Vista has A LOT more to offer then Direct X10. If you actually USED it, then you would know. Microsoft believes that its users are competent enough to not need do like Apple, and make videos presenting the features of their product.
- Snipping Tool
- Easy backup system, easy system backup system (complete PC backup),
- Advance networking options
- Network map
- Easy and understandable file sharing system (no more stupid sharing directories)
- Proper support for large displays (22inch and above), thanks to the new improved DPI increase system and UI.
- Auto-maintenance: system clean itself, auto-defragment
- Secure, with UAC, nearly all malware and virus can't do anything on your computer.
- Go back in time, allows you to go back in time on a file, folder, or even system, with restore points that could be manually created.
- Improved Windows update system (no more web based)
- Improved Help documentation (now its very very useful, even in troubleshooting section!)
- Vista 64-bit allows you to run 64-bit software (as well as 32-bit of course), unlock the full potential of your CPU, all processes in that edition of Vista is all made in 64-bit.
- Vista fully supports and design in multi-core CPU in mind. Every porcesses and teh core itself uses all your CPUs simultaniously for improve performance
- Super Fetch - Pre-loads your program files (.dll's, .sys, etc..) before you do, so programs starts significantly faster (I even saw about 4 times faster than XP with Photoshop CS3)
- Improved multiple displays support
- New Core that was in desperate need (XP uses NT1 core made in 1993, where Microosft was like: "Viruses, malware, spyware?!?! HAHAHAHHA who would be this mean to make them?")
- Greatly improved memory management (as I recall, XP memory management was said to be "abysmal").
- UI is generated by the GPU, as it should have been since day 1. (CPU was never designed to draw)
- Greately improved sound engine, now the information given by software related to sound needs to be exact. This sure make sound engineers very happy.
- Per application volume controls (something that was asked A LOT)
- Applications can't fool Windows to steal focus.
and a lot more...

 

WRONG!
Do you know what Direct X is? Do you REALLY like REALLY know what it is? No, you don't. But as a software developer and I can tell you, that I do. Simply put, DirectX is not some kind of software, why do you think you need a video card with embedded system to support it? If it was a software, then believe me, you can install Geforce 8800 drivers for your Geforce 2, and you would have Direct X10... but it's not the case, as Direct X is not a software.
Direct X is a system, a system that allows direct communication between the hardware and the game/software, bypassing about everything for maximize performance. In addition, it comes with a great bunch of very flexible API codes that allows you to make visual effects, and graphical rendering methods.

DirectX 10, is significantly different over Direct 9, and cannot be adapted to Windows XP core system. The only solution to make DirectX 10 run under XP, is to significantly change XP to Vista.... So not a chance that it would work!
So many projects was been developed to port or emulate DirectX 10 under XP, and they all (even the emulated version) concluded that it is impossible as the OS is just way to different.


In XP, the video card drivers is attached too much to the core, if the drivers crashes, then you DO get a BSOD at 100% of the time. What you probably guess it is a crash, was simply a driver bug/error, and not a real crash.

Look on the internet, and you will see countless documentations on all the systems that I talked about here, and you will see that I am correct. If you are interested, reading those long documentations will give you a much greater in depth perspective of how each system works, and get all the technical details (I just summarized here).

 

Basically, what Goodbytes is saying is that under DX9, the graphics driver (hell, most software) required kernel level access (i.e. Administrator rights in most cases) in order to run. Underr Vista, there is no kernel level access to any software. So, DX10 is written in a completely different way to everything that has gone before. Therefore, it won't work under XP.

NaNeil, you are using Excel for scientific calculations??? Do you know how many bugs there are in Excel when you use it that way? Why not write a fortran program to do the same thing? Does anyone have to check your spreadsheet for accuracy? If so, how long does it take? The company that I work for does lots of scientific calculations and if the spreadsheet is too complicated, (i.e. takes more than 2 days to check thoroughly, formulae, cell copies etc) then we use programs. The output is more reliable, and a program (in our production system) can only be read, not altered.

Oh, and I'm using Fedora almost exclusively in my tri-boot system. I only boot into XP for games. Vista has hardly been touched, but may get FSX installed on it in a few weeks.

Andy

 

Dual boot, use both, figure out which you like, then if you want get rid of the other or just keep both until the next Microsoft OS comes out

 

Being a systems developer myself I most certainly know what DX10 is and what it isn't. As do I know what Vista is and what it isn't. Personally I cannot in good conscience recommend Vista to anyone. Other people might see that differently, but from my experience and those of my colleagues and friends Vista truly is a step back from XP.

As for kernel level access, that doesn't have anything to do with administrative rights, although as an analogy it might suffice. One of the reasons video drivers cause less trouble crash-wise in Vista is because video drivers no longer run in kernel space but in user space. That has it's upsides in more stability but it certainly also has drawback such as lower performance.

Last but not least, GoodBytes, do me a favour and ease off the caffein products a bit. No need to go overboard. You like Vista, I most certainly do not, but I DO know what I'm talking about, so don't treat me like an idiot.

By the way, audio processing in software is done for DRM reasons and not to make life easier for audio engineers.

/az

 

It's not a question about who like what.. it's a question of given proper facts.

You do me a favor, how about you stop mentioning false facts. And that you get to use the OS seriously to see for yourself. They were countless number of serious articles on what you mentioned in the previous post about Vista.

 

i say, why not? although i dont have a vista system myself, i have built a low end gaming pc for a friend that uses it, and i must be honest i was impressed! as my first experience with it want amazing to say the least. but i guess with the right hardware (atleast 2Gb of RAM) vista runs smoothly, i boots up / shuts down quickly. and it seems to be very stabe. and although there is a performance hit with games i would hapily sacrifice that for more stability.

 

In my opinion, a lot of issues with Vista are because it's sold on hardware that's not really good enough to run it. A game will 'run' when you have the minimum hardware spec, but it won't run well. Similarly, Vista runs awfully on older / less capable hardware. Being less demanding, these systems run XP just fine - so people (myself included) see the sluggish Vista installs on this cheap hardware and think 'god, Vista sucks'.

I'm looking forward to trying it out on a good machine, though.

Nah, it's just an educational aid we were given by a lecturer, it produces plots from wavefunctions, but involves a lot of calculation and data. It serves as a brilliant aid also to demonstrate the speed differences between excel 2003 and 2007 (even with the microsoft 'patch' applied).

 

Oh no you didnt

Really from a gamer perspective (as you use Linux for work, I assume this is why you are looking into it) We are going to get forced off DX9 some time down the line, you may as well shell out for it now, you will have to at one point.

 

@Ninja_182 please don't cut my quote.

 

Hahaha... this seems like a fun thread...

My opinion:

Situations to run Vista:
All new hardware and supported programs, like a brand new computer/printer/camera/toenail clippers/sink/and nightlight... yes, make sure they are ALL compatible!
You are a techie who doesn't mind fighting (imagine being a rabbit fighting a tiger) to get new or unusual programs running, and LONG hours of stress.
You are a gamer who wants to play the latest games.

Situations to run XP:
You run varying programs of unknown origin.
You want to run any peripherals or programs written prior to V-day (when Microsoft switched from gently offering Vista to bullying people into buying it (also bullying HW vendors into supporting it))

I've run Vista since the first MSDN beta on my system (2.4GHz DC w4GB DDR400MHz @ 1TB RAID5 and ASUS MB, oh and 2x X1650 Pro) and while I loved it to begin with, after quickly approaching 3 years, I would personally like to slap the designers. This system is a jack of all trades, switching from gaming to graphics work to data processing to programming to website design to video editing to network discovery to media server to w/e else I can't think of. It runs every other program under the sun (except those that won't run) and it constantly glitches on me and screws up, I am NOT a fan of the fact that when it screws up, where in XP it would lock up and recover with the shutting down of a program or the adjustment of hardware, vista often just doesn't come back. not to mention all the programs that won't run (like Diablo II, which runs on EVERYTHING, even ME!) Now... I'm a hard user, I have 4 19in LCDs running off 2 dinky X1650 Pros and I throw every program at it I can (oh I forgot AutoCAD). From our experience in the shop, most people who have Vista and like it are either ultra techy/gamers (the ex-vice president of tech support for Compaq and ex-vice president of NEC run a pair of our Vista x64 Systems (fyi-they're married-hence pair)) or complete novices who have NO new hardware and no unique programs. Businesses CANNOT run vista, as there are basically no vertical market programs that work, and if you're going to even dream of touching programs like that... or anything less than mainstream (photoshop plugins, tweaking programs, video or graphics editing in general, or 3d modeling) stay away from Vista.

And before I forget the DX10 thing... Microsoft CAN port DX10 to XP, it's really not THAT hard (you know, start from scratch, rebuild the kernel related parts, but they know how to do it this time so it'll be faster ) but they would NEVER do it, Vista is already a massive failure in ROI despite MS's claims, they will do anything and everything they can to fix that. Not to mention that with out Vista's situation in the picture, the ROI for the investment to reprogram it isn't big enough.

 

Alrighty, Insane Maniac reporting back in. Sorry to say but I have been using Vista for over a month now and I must say this is my
personal experience. After running XP for so many years and even running a beta of XP SP 3, I must say that my transfer over to Vista is not without troubles. The following is a recounting of my personal experience with vista. Moving onto the install, everything was clean efficient and without trouble. I was not fraught with the trouble of worrying about my hard being nuked. I dont how much abuse my seagate has taken over the 2 1/2 years I have had it, moving on though, Vista booted up and when I looked at it, the graphics at first were nothing short of uglay! Now the first week was a royal nightmare from hell. I must say this right now, Vista would at times not detect my RAM and then would start to chug like a drunk snail in the fast lane. Well I figured there was a hardware error and decided to switch out my ram slots from slot 1 and 3 to 2 and 4. Well that didnt change anything and it had to be attributed to an error in Vista. I scrapped my first attempt and said, "What the heck I will go for it again." Being the persistent idiot I am I rebooted and started Vista up again. The installation went off without a hitch, things booted correctly and I was not fraught with any trouble. Of course being a brand new install, Vista had some teething issues with my system. The OS would like to consume copious amounts of RAM like a fat man at Krispy Kreme on a buy 1 get ten free day. Well after some minor tweaking and adjusting that took a couple of hours at most, things balanced out and the system become a real performer. After getting all necessary drivers updated from Chipset to Graphics and whatnot, I must say one word to explain it, Wow! After finishing the installation of my Graphics drivers for some odd reason the desktop appeared more appealing. I am the type of guy that will point the little imperfections in stuff I find anything wrong. I looked at my desktop and literaly uttered, "Wow, it looks so much better."

This utterance was not from a placebo effect from having a new OS. The actual desktop looked much more appealing and cleaner, not to mention more visually appeasing. Now moving onto my gaming. Updating to Service Pack was and is an absolute must. Playing various games from Half Life 2 Episode two to Unreal Tournament 3 I must say the performance is there, but is a mixed bag. I am not sure but when playing on XP, Unreal Tournament 3 Averaged around 50FPS on the 32 multiplayer maps. This is when Necris and Axon vehicles are flying and people are shooting the holy crap out of each other. Being a gamer, I use modified drivers for optimized performance and enhanced image quality. Get what little power out of every last bit of the drivers is what I say. Various other games played were Team Fortress 2, GRAW, Bioshock, Age of Empires, FEAR, and COD just to name a few. Being a gamer I want the best performance with the best image quality. The resolution I will run most stuff at is around 1152 x 864. The performance on these games was top notch and I must say I was very happy with the performance.

Now if your going to ask about the audio side of Vista this is where it gets interesting. Running an Audigy 2 ZS was almost nothing short of a miracle thanks to the Godly modder of Creative's Audio Drivers. I have to say I havent experienced first hand the crashing of Creative's official drivers in XP but I have heard the horror stories on both sides of the fence. Vista and XP. After going with a modded driver set for my audigy 2 ZS and downloading the free edition of Alchemy I must say that EAX is back and trust me the effects are top notch. Using a Razer Barracuda HP-1 for testing and playing, there is nothing more satisfying than these headphones for me anyway. All in all the only glitch I had was when FEAR extraction point had a problem playing the audio in 5.1 mode with EAX advanced HD on. Sadly though, switching out to 4 Speaker mode fixed the problem. Later on in the game when I switched back to 5.1 mode, there was no problem. I chocked it up to an anomaly and just went about my business.

Wrapping things up, Vista can be a mixed bag, but I think a lot of manufacturers plus Microsoft are getting crap for saying their hardware that is Vista certified and Vista Capable are well how you say, "You run Vista with no problem on E-StoneMachines, no problem at all, no problem."

Overall my experience has been a work of progress but the Vista experience is this. The OS is faster, rock solid, gaming performance is there, overall security is better and just better in my opinion. Although it's great, XP beats out still in some areas. That is up for you to debate and decide.

P.S. In regards to the whole Direct X 10 thing, I was following Direct X 10 religously like a fanatic. I have only heard of one gentleman who sucessfully was able to get the Direct X10 features onto XP, and even his attempts were in the alpha stages. It was nothing short of miraculous, but sadly it didnt always work. The only other Direct X10 emulation so to speak was from Cryis' XP Direct X10 hack. I think Direct X10 on XP is very difficult but is more feasible on Vista given that Vista's driver model is much more improved over XP's. So trust me on this, Direct X10 on XP is VERY difficult at best. Not impossible, but very hard and possibly too much trouble to try and write, given the older driver model.

 

I ran MS Vista 64-bit Ultimate from release on my AMD 3500 with 1GB of RAM and it was terrible. Lack of driver support it was slow and applications did not work well on it. I was dual booting and using my XP build more often than the vista build. A year later I then decided to upgrade to 2GIG hoping to resolve most of the problems but unfortunately it didnt.

6 months later I purchased new kit Quad Core and 4 Gigs of RAM and i installed vista-64 bit and it runs like a dream. Best OS and it is fully supported and the hardware works seamlessly with it.

So the morale here is. If you don't have the hardware to support the operating system it is not worth having. But if you do, it was made for it. It is designed to work with it.. and it is the OS of the future 64-bit is the way.

 

I built a system for a friend [Quad, Pair of 8800GTs, 4GBs] and stuck x64 Vista on it, ran it along side my PC [Quad, Pair of 7800GTXs, 2GBs] for about a month just getting it set up, and found that Vista runs just fine. Had to find a bunch of hotfixes to enable it to boot with all 4 gigs, but after that and disabling UAC, the only problem I've had with it is getting the unsigned drivers to work without selecting the option on boot - found that to be a real pain for Core Temp etc.
But saying that, I couldn't really tell any stability differences, both PC's would do obligatory CTD's with BF2 mods etc. It seemed fine for normal use.
To me it seems a sidestep more than an upgrade, none of the features really interest me, and no [in my eyes] decent new games have come out to justify it as a prerequisite.
In short, I don't see any reason not to go for Vista.